In search of a strategy to save freedom
This has been very informative reading so far. I’ve also gotten a bunch of email from people who would rather not go on the record in the blog. I’m glad to see so many people putting a lot of thought into their answers without just shooting from the hip about how they would resist to the death.
As I see it, the main problem Americans will face if we get a dictatorial government (which I think will begin in earnest with gun confiscation) is that our own personal resistance may lead to arrest for our friends and relatives. Even if some of us would “resist to the death,” would we resist if it meant prison for our surviving family and friends?
People get kind of sick of the Nazis always being brought up to show how bad things can get, but this is an appropriate discussion to examine what the Nazis did to squelch resistance among the German populace. The Nazis didn’t just arrest the resistor, but they arrested the resistor’s family members all the way out to cousins. They sometimes arrested the resistor’s friends and neighbors. The Nazi’s also liked to arrive in the middle of the night to do their arrests. Such tactics had a chilling effect on the individual German’s willingness to resist. During the Nazi reign, German neighbors often turned in their own “suspicious” neighbors to Nazi authorities in order to protect themselves from guilt by association.
So let me expand on my original question: Even if your are willing to resist, how do you do it if it means endangering your children, your wife, your aunts and uncles, your closest friends? What is the strategy individual people can employ if we are to save freedom for America?
October 24th, 2008 at 10:37 am
The most common answer is “I have a wife and kid to think of, so I will surrender my guns”. So on that day they leave, only to come back a few days later to a now unarmed family and haul them off. How did you protect them by giving up the only means of defense? We need to realize that we are in this together. We need to stop thinking of how can “I” protect my family and start thinking of how “WE” can protect our families!
The only way to protect our selves is to defend each other. Safety in numbers! If they knock on your neighbors door, you and others neighbors should be defending them (I’m talking about taking out the invaders). If you are the target, you should be protected by the ones you defended. It will be very scary to try and confiscate guns from one house if others are shooting at you. Any troops, cops, officials should be met with resistance as they enter a neighborhood.
Look at the LA riots… The cops stayed out when they knew they were outnumbered. They were not stupid and did not want to get killed. The day they start taking guns we should ban together and prevent any gun confiscation thus ensuring we can fight back. I got your back you got mine… it’s the only reasonably effective way.
~Brogan
October 25th, 2008 at 3:21 am
I’ve often wondered about this. Once I was one of those that wanted to stock up a few guns and plenty of ammo. But then got to thinking. There was a small lot of people down in Texas that had guns, They sent the ATF…eventually the place “Caught fire and burned to the ground” So the problem is this. No matter how many guns you, and your neighbors have, the government will have more.
Resistance….in the broader sense..is futile. The thing to do is think of how would I survive with out a gun. It’s what I’m doing. I do not have, nor do I need a gun. Would I feel more comfortable with one? Yes. But I’ve already prepared for the inevitable.
Mark
October 25th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Mark,
The small lot of people down in Texas stood alone in the face of the ATF. The media gave false and biased reports just about guaranteeing nobody would come to their aid. If this was a Martial Law situation, where we all are involved things would be much different. Everyone would know that something’s not right and it would be in the interest of everyone to stick together.
You also said resistance is futile… Let me tell you a story. In January 1943, the S.S. entered the ghetto to round up more Jews for shipment to the death camps. They were met by a volley of bombs, Molotov cocktails, and the bullets from a few firearms which had been smuggled into the ghettos. Twenty S.S. soldiers were killed. The action encouraged a few members of the Polish resistance to support the uprising, and a few machine guns, some hand grenades, and about a hundred rifles and revolvers were smuggled in.
Facing them were almost 3,000 crack German troops with 7,000 reinforcements available. Tanks and heavy artillery surrounded the ghetto. General Heinrich Himmler promised Adolf Hitler that the uprising would be quelled in three days, and the ghetto would be destroyed. It took four weeks. The ghetto was reduced to rubble following bomber attacks, gas attacks, and burning of every structure by the Nazis. Scores of German soldiers were killed. Some historical accounts report that 300 Germans were
Killed and 1,000 wounded, although the actual figure is unknown.
If the government has to reduce EVERY neighborhood to rubble to quell resistance, they are in for a LONG un-winnable battle. There are just not enough troops to get the job done. Never mind those troops that will uphold the constitution and join the resistance.
The first battle to win is the battle of your mind! If you have the attitude that there is nothing you can do then you have already lost. Every great success story started with it can’t be done. And time and time again that statement has been proven wrong. Also you would have the added incentive of fighting for your lives. “When a fox is chasing a rabbit, he’s running for his dinner. The rabbit is running for his life.”
~Brogan
October 26th, 2008 at 8:10 am
There are only two choices: resist or not. There are specific consequences and outcomes for each choice, and with resistance, there is hope. If you waffle, you have already made a choice.
Pick one and start planning. However, there are no guarantees that your plans will work. As others have said, choose your community and your friends. Discuss values and limits and hold to them as a group as best you can.
The natural state is freedom, not slavery. Nature always wins.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:13 am
I have only one that big brother is aware of, the rest nobody knows about, and it would stay that way. If it came down to it, I have property in the middle of nowhere were we would disappear to and get back to a more primitive lifestyle. If they came there, there would most likely be a stand off, it is very rural, closest neighbor over a mile away. Most folks there would stand together as guns are a necessity to survive.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I think you have to realize that any tyrant or criminal element knows a person’s soft spot is their loved ones and you should very well be prepared that if you resist they will come for your family.
You either decide you will submit and become a subject or you will resist tyranny until freedom once again exists.
Each person must decide this for themselves. As for my family I would express they either join the fight, or possibly prepare to hide. There may be a possibility for them to get a new ID or name and continue living under a new identity.
You must also realize all your property will either be destroyed or confiscated just like many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Myself, I cannot imagine any amount of wealth or security that would satisfy my soul and make slavery palatable. I would rather die a poor free man or fighting to be a free man than live as some tyrants subject or slave. Gun confiscation and martial law are the tripwires for me once that begins it is time to start preparing for battle. It won’t be my first combat experience but it truly would be more righteous than the other ones.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” –Thomas Jefferson: his motto.
“When patience has begotten false estimates of its motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.” –Thomas Jefferson to M. deStael, 1807. ME 11:282
“As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1803. FE 8:256
Thomas Jefferson, and other founding fathers had it right when they thought off, wrote and collaborated on the framework of the United States of America. It is noted, while not perfect, that the republican form of government is the best form of government to protect the rights of the people, giving them a voice to correct a government moving in the wrong direction. Thomas Jefferson suggests patience for the voice to be heard first, followed by rebellion, again being patient and then willful resistance. Clearly we have a moral obligation to stand firm against what is happening to our country and we will be held accountable for not resisting the socialist agenda being proposed by the current political elite in Washington. Each person has to decide how they will handle this and how they and their families will cope. Clearly there are only two choices. Families can stay doped up and numb on tv, internet, movies, video games, drugs, prozac, porn, the media and other vices used to avoid the world or they can do as I have choosen and make a willful, free and deliberate moral resistance to tyranny in obedience to God.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Two guns here – Grandpa’s shotgun and my dad’s deer rifle. All the men in our family have served in the military, defending this country. Both my father and father-in-law died from injuries sustained in WW II. No, after many days of thinking about this, I step forward and say that I would not hand over our family’s guns. Yes, I do know what that would mean for my husband and I, but the time comes when one must draw the line.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:43 am
I think the key would be continuing and relentless resistance by all means possible, while maintaining a very nondescript outward lifestyle…. . To choose your battles wisely and strike with precision and speed. The resistance movements in the Warsaw ghetto is just one example. A vital element is to form tight knit bands of like- minded individuals to do the deeds. You would have to become an award winning actor overnight to remain aloof on the surface, but quite the vicious resister in private. In today’s world of computers, cameras and big brother it would be harder to pull off, but still do-able. Also, the notion of neighboors watching neighbors.. and the “Eagle Eyes” programs… lend to the need to trust only your closest allies and never “sqeak” any questionable activities in public places or to untrusted contacts. Also note, now that Marcus Wolf (former head of the East German Stasi), is “helping” us set up “Homeland (IN)Security” here.. more and more East German-like methods and programs will likely be used.
As I mentioned before, stashed, un-registered guns are key, however one can make a rather nasty improvised shotgun with some 3/4″ pipe and a few other bits. I also think it will be a long tough slog for those that choose to take us on.. Remember, we are the direct decedents of those who took care of the British 230-odd years ago and gained independence.. it’s in our genes.. all we need to do is rekindle the fighting spirit. It’s one thing to be sent over to some other squalid country to do the bidding of the politicians, but it’s another thing entirely, when it’s in your own back yard.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Never surrender and never give up!
November 5th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Wife and kids notwithstanding, I once signed a blank check in support of the USA and the Constitution to the US Navy, and I’ll sign one again in support of the Constitution against the tyranny that has taken a stranglehold on the USA. I’ve got guns, ammo, and guts to spare, along with a burning desire for freedom, liberty, and justice for all…. And I ain’t scared of no jack-booted thugs. I’ll scream from the mountain tops against the federal government that has WAY overstepped it’s bounds in the last several decades. I’ll stand beside real patriots who believe in the Constitution and America as she was meant to be. Liberty or Death!!!!
November 17th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I’m not sure it’s an issue. Most American soldiers would not turn on their countrymen because their loyalty is not to the President or Congress, but to the people and the Constitution.
If someone from the government came to my door and asked me to voluntarily hand over my weapons, I would laugh and close the door. If a law was passed banning my weapons, I would hide them. If armed police or soldiers came to my door saying what I owned was illegal, I would quote the Constitution at them and refuse to turn them over. If arrested, I would not attempt to harm the arresting officers. But I would refuse to tell them where my weapons were in the hopes that family and friends would be able to reach the cache and use them when the country devolved into chaos.
I could not condone an attack on the civilian authority in the country by someone whose guns were taken, because it would not have the right effect. It would kill people who were more likely stupid than evil, it would galvanize those on the fence against the gunowner, and it would cause the crackdown happen faster and harder.
November 24th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Kit you’re certainly entitled to your options. But when the government finally comes to your door they won’t be asking to take your guns they’ll just take them.
Since most soldiers or policemen for that matter have never read the Constitution your protests will fall on deaf ears.
Maybe you’ll be lucky and live through your stay in prison. However if you show the same weakness in there as you write in your post, I doubt you’ll have much of a chance.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
“…What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify if a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure….” — Thomas Jefferson: Letter to Colonel Smith, Nov. 13, 1787